THIRD SECTION

DECISION

Application no . 48638/09 Jaroslav BARTL against Slovakia

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 4 June 2013 as a Committee composed of:

Luis López Guerra , President, Ján Šikuta , Nona Tsotsoria , judges, and Marialena Tsirli , Deputy Section Registrar ,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 31 August 2009,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

1 . The applicant, Mr Jaroslav Bartl , is a Slovak national, who was born in 1941 and lives in Dunajská Lužná .

2 . The Slovak Government (“the Government”) were represented by Ms M. Pirošíková , their Agent.

A. The circumstances of the case

3 . The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.

1. Action

4 . On 19 September 2006 the applicant lodged an action with the Bratislava I District Court against an optician ’ s shop. No copy of the action has been made available to the Court, the applicant submitting that in the action he had been claiming a judicial order that the defendant repair his pair of spectacles or provide him with a new one.

5 . On 26 July 2007 the District Court instructed the applicant to provide further and better particulars of his claim, which he did on 19 October 2007.

6 . On 16 September 2009 the District Court requested that the applicant substantiate his application for an exemption from the obligation to pay the court fees.

7 . On 12 October 2009 the applicant withdrew the action indicating that he no longer had any interest in pursuing it due to a deterioration of his state of health, in connection with which he was being examined or treated by health specialists in a long list of various fields of medicine.

8 . On 26 October 2009 the proceedings were discontinued.

2. Examination of the length of the proceedings at the domestic level

9 . In the meantime, the applicant had complained about the length of the proceedings in his action to the President of the District Court, on 30 April 2009, and to the Constitutional Court, on 22 June and 2 September 2009.

10 . In a letter of 15 May 2009, the President of the District Court acknowledged that there had been undue delay in the proceedings and gave the applicant an apology. She too informed the applicant that she had instructed the judge and court officer concerned immediately to take measures with a view to rectifying the situation and that she would monitor the progress of the proceedings to ensure that no further delays occur.

11 . The applicant ’ s constitutional complaints were declared inadmissible on 28 July and 1 October 2009, respectively.

The former complaint was rejected because it had been submitted too early after the letter of the President of the District Court of 15 May 2009 to give the District Court a genuine opportunity to rectify the situation.

The latter complaint was rejected because it had been introduced too early after the Constitutional Court ’ s former decision of 28 July 2009.

B. Relevant domestic law and practice

12 . The relevant domestic law and practice is summarised, for example, in the Court ’ s judgment in the case of Ištván and Ištvánová v. Slovakia (no. 30189/07, §§ 23 - 50, 12 June 2012).

COMPLAINTS

13 . The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention about the length of the proceedings in his action. In addition, the complained about the manner in which the Constitutional Court had dealt with his constitutional complaints. In that respect, in substance, he relied on Article 13 of the Convention.

THE LAW

14 . Following communication of the application to the respondent Government, a controversy arose as to whether the applicant had exhausted domestic remedies, as required under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention.

15 . However, the Court considers that it is not called upon to entertain the question of exhaustion of domestic remedies in the present case because the application is in any event inadmissible on other grounds.

16 . For that matter, the Court observes that pursuant to the relevant part of Article 35 of the Convention, as amended by Protocol No. 14:

“3. The Court shall declare inadmissible any individual application submitted under Article 34 if it considers that:

(a) the application is [ ... ] manifestly ill-founded, or an abuse of the right of individual application; or

(b) the applicant has not suffered a significant disadvantage, unless respect for human rights as de-fined in the Convention and the Protocols thereto requires an examination of the application on the merits and provided that no case may be rejected on this ground which has not been duly considered by a domestic tribunal.

4. The Court shall reject any application which it considers inadmissible under this Article. It may do so at any stage of the proceedings.”

17 . As to the facts of the present case, the Court observes first of all that the applicant has failed to submit the action, which gave rise to the proceedings complained of. It further observes that, according to the applicant, the object of his claim was the repair or replacement of a pair of spectacles.

18 . In that respect, the Court recalls that, in its decision in the case of Bock v. Germany (( dec. ), no. 22051/07, 19 January 2010), it dismissed an application for abuse of the right of individual application on the following grounds:

“The Court ... had regard to the disproportion between the triviality of the facts, namely the pettiness of the amount involved and the fact that the proceedings concerned a dietary supplement, not a pharmaceutical product, and the extensive use of court proceedings – including the appeal to an international court – against the background of that Court ’ s overload and the fact that a large number of applications raising serious issues on human rights are pending. Furthermore, the Court observes that proceedings as the one at issue in the instant case also contribute to the congestion of the courts at the domestic level and thus to one of the causes for excessive length of court proceedings. In the examination of the case the Court further took into consideration the applicant ’ s comfortable financial situation as a government official and the fact that there was no question of principle involved as evidenced by the lack of an appeal after the first instance dismissal of the applicant ’ s claim. Finally, it also considered the nature and scope of the alleged Convention violation. In this respect the Court notes, that the issue of excessive length of court proceedings has been dealt with by the Court in numerous cases – in particular also against the respondent Government – in which the principles of the reasonable time requirement of Article 6 § 1 have been laid down ...”

19 . The Court further recalls that in the case of Dudek (VIII) v. Germany (( dec. ), nos. 12977/09, 15856/09, 15890/09, 15892/09 and 16119/09, 23 November 2010), it found that the approach chosen in the Bock decision quoted above was still applicable even after the entry into force of the new admissibility requirement in 35 § 3 (b) of the Convention.

20 . Furthermore, in so far as substantiated, the Court has found no indication that the financial impact and general importance of the litigation at stake were such as to constitute any significant disadvantage on his part in terms of Article 35 § 3 (b) of the Convention (see, e. g . , Adrian Mihai Ionescu v. Romania ( dec. ), no. 36659/04, 1 June 2010; Rinck v. France ( dec. ), no. 18774/09, 19 October 2011; Ştefănescu v. Romania ( dec. ), no. 11774/04, 12 April 2011; Burov v. Moldova ( dec. ), no. 38875/08, 14 June 2011; Šumbera v. the Czech Republic ( dec. ), no. 48228/08, 21 February 2012; and Hudecová and Others v. Slovakia ( dec. ), no. 53807/09, 18 December 2012). In that connection, the Court finds it of relevance that, although the reasons behind the Constitutional Court ’ s decision of 28 July 2009 are as such susceptible of raising Convention issues (see Ištván and Ištvánová , cited above, § § 77-91, 99 and 107-113), the applicant ’ s length-of-proceedings complaint was examined in detail by the President of the District Court who – in her letter of 15 May 2009 – offered an apology and announced the taking of specific measures for acceleration of the impugned proceedings. That acceleration could however not fully materialise as, in a matter of a few months, the applicant withdrew his action.

21 . Lastly, the Court observes that, following the applicant ’ s withdrawal of his action, the proceedings, which had started on 19 September 2006, were eventually discontinued, on 26 October 2009. They thus lasted three years, one month and seven days.

22 . In sum, it the light of all the material in its possession, and in so far as the matters complained of have been substantiated, the Court finds that the application is inadmissible under Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention. It must accordingly be rejected under that provision, in conjunction with Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court unanimously

Declares the application inadmissible.

Marialena Tsirli Luis López Guerra Deputy Registrar President